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Or VOCAL, as in the case of Shelby County's new Victims of Crime
Advisory League, a group that consulted on the county's recently
released plan for the Memphis Sexual Assault Resource Center
(MSARC).

"It reflects all our thinking and the conversations," says Deborah
Clubb, head of the Memphis Area Women's Council and a member of
VOCAL.

In June, after months of controversy over mismanagement at the
city-run Memphis Sexual Assault Resource Center, the center was turned
over to Shelby County government. Last week, the Memphis and Shelby
County Health Department released a 90-day assessment on the future of
the center. The report recommended employing a pool of 20 on-call
nurses, a name change to the Mid-South Sexual Assault Resource Center,
and a new location.

"We tried to step back and assess the organization," says Yvonne
Madlock, head of the health department. "This is an opportunity to look
at key questions: What should MSARC be? What do we think the caseload
should be? What are the qualifications of the individuals who work
there?"

Nurses at the center perform forensic exams on sexual assault
victims. The evidence gathered during that exam is then used to
prosecute rapists. But because of staffing shortages in the spring of
this year, two teenage victims were denied care and asked to return at
a later date.

The health department estimates that MSARC will perform 60 forensic
examinations each month. Before a partnership with Le Bonheur
Children's Medical Center and the Child Advocacy Center was brokered in
the spring, 50 percent of the victims seen at MSARC were ages 12 and
under and adolescents between the ages of 13 and 17 who had been
victimized by a relative or caregiver.

Those victims are now being seen at the Child Advocacy Center, while
adolescents victimized by a stranger are still being taken to MSARC.
Eighty percent of exams given to children can be scheduled while 90
percent of the cases involving adults are emergency exams.

"Most of the clinical exams done for adults are done shortly after
an assault has occurred. As you can imagine, those don't always occur
between 9 and 5, Monday through Friday," Madlock says. "It's critical
to have a pool of nurses available and on call who can report to the
center if necessary."

Madlock says the change to county management has provided stability
for the center's staff and enhanced the quality of service.

"The availability of nurses working in that pool had diminished in
the recent history of MSARC," she says. "We've re-invigorated the pool
of nurses that are available for doing sexual assault
examinations."

The sexual assault resource center costs about $1.2 million to
operate annually, but it receives reimbursements — $750 from the
state of Tennessee and up to $1,000 from Mississippi and Arkansas
— for each exam performed.

One of the report's recommendations was to co-locate MSARC within
the Family Safety Center. MSARC's lease in its current location is up
in the spring of 2010, and the new Family Safety Center is supposed to
be operational by the beginning of that year.

"I'm glad we ended up speaking up for that," Clubb says. "We think
that gives us a centralized outreach point, not just for victims but
for prevention programs."

Going forward, Clubb says VOCAL would like to see more rape cases
prosecuted.

"There are many more rape kits than there are rape cases in the
courts, and there are many reasons for that," she says. "Sex crimes are
the hardest to prosecute. There are no witnesses. It really is 'he
said, she said' or 'he said, he said.'"

And both VOCAL and the health department would like to see MSARC do
more education and outreach. But Madlock says the transfer to county
government has been a positive one.

"Administratively, we've been responsive to the needs of the
organization," she says. "If it's a need for pencils or a need for
policy, we've been there for them."